Tag finding friends

Oh, Armadillo! This Party’s All Wrong!

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Oh, Armadillo! This Party’s All Wrong!
Ellie Irving and Robert Starling
Happy Yak

Kind, gentle Armadillo lives deep in the rainforest and longs to make friends: however he has a tendency to get everything wrong. One day he has an idea: perhaps if I throw a party I will make a few friends, after all everyone loves parties. Having made invitations off he goes to deliver them. The first goes to Jaguar who is hoping a large springy sponge cake will be on offer. Back home goes Armadillo, creating so he hopes, the perfect sponge cake.

Out he goes again, next stop the Apes: they want games especially musical chairs, pass the parcel and hide and seek. Armadillo rushes home and gets to work …

Then for the balloon loving Lemurs, Armadillo fashions what he hopes is the perfect balloon, sufficiently large for lots of passengers.

On party day our host eagerly awaits his guests and having welcomed them all, announces the fun and games. Seemingly though Armadillo’s ideas are rather different from what the other animals are anticipating: shock horror! He’s devastated by their reactions, so is this the end of his party and hoped-for friendships?

Happily not. An accidental trip that sends him hurtling onto the sponge cake and thence into the air and finally back to earth doesn’t just render the guests speechless but it makes Armadillo see things in a different light; he’s ready to acknowledge and even take pride in his divergent thinking and creativity.

Will he persuade the others to join him in some truly original ways of having fun? You bet … And as for finding friends, certainly, but Armadillo stays true to himself, muddled and different. Hurrah!

A smashing story to show children, especially those who like the protagonist think differently, that rather than a problem, it’s something to celebrate.

The Song of Spring

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The Song of Spring
Hendrik Jonas
Prestel Publishing

Spring is on its way and the birds are singing their springtime songs to ‘attract some friends’. Mr Blackbird sings for Mrs Blackbird and so it is with Mr Robin and all the other birds. Or rather, all but one little bird. He cannot remember his spring song but he really wants a friend so he has a go anyway …

An enthusiastic dog responds but a dog isn’t what our feathered friend seeks so he has another go, and another and …

His oink, moo, meow, meh and hee-haw result in the arrival of the corresponding animals until the little bird is surrounded by new friends though there’s not a bird among them.

His friends are at a loss to know how to help. Silence ensues until the bird emits a sudden, unexpected …

The outcome is entirely satisfactory, not only for the little bird, but also for his farmyard friends and celebratory sounds are heard all around.

Both adorable and suddenly, funny, this book is sure to have your little ones giggling in delight and enthusiastically joining in by yelling the names of the farmyard animals that little bird emulates and making their sounds. Doubtless they’ll also enjoy attempting the ‘deafening’ parp!

Jonas’ watercolour and collage style illustrations are wonderfully expressive and totally alluring when it comes to generating audience participation.

The Snow Lion / Toby and Tabitha

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The Snow Lion
Jim Helmore and Richard Jones
Simon & Schuster
Caro and her mum move to a new house in a new neighbourhood. Then, into the whiteness of everything comes a snowy lion inviting Caro to play hide-and-seek. Their play fills her day bringing cheer instead of loneliness; but can this new animal friend encourage her to venture outside and have fun with the local children?
That proves something of a challenge but little by little, with the lion’s help, Caro starts to find her inner courage and joins in with the other children.

When mum suggests adding colour to their new abode, and invites her new friends round for a ‘painting party’, Caro is concerned that the lack of white will mean no more visits from her wildcat pal.

He no longer appears anywhere inside her brightly painted house, but surely he can’t have deserted her altogether, can he?
A lovely, gentle, reassuring tale about moving and finding new friends.
Richard Jones’s mixed media, warm-hearted scenes of friends real and imaginary are enchanting.

Toby and Tabitha
Alexander Bar and Emma Proctor
Walker Books
Have you ever heard of dancing tortoises? No? Me neither. I suspect nobody has other than young Lucy, whose grandfather owns, the pet shop, Animal Palace. This establishment is full of all manner of desirable pets and one of Lucy’s favourite places. She loves to help with the animals whenever she can, her favourites being two tortoises, Tabitha and Toby.
Lucy has a secret though: when the shop is closed and darkness falls, the two creatures respond to her singing by leaving their beds and dancing together in the moonlight, with Lucy joining them in a ‘Tea for One’ rendition of her own.
Then one day, disaster strikes: Lucy arrives at the shop to find Toby alone: Tabitha has a new home with a little boy, so her Grandpa tells her.

When the boy returns with a question, “what do tortoises like to do?” Lucy has a dilemma. Should she share her secret with Tabitha’s new owner, or keep it to herself?
Who would have thought that a couple of dancing tortoises could be the catalyst for a burgeoning friendship between two children?

This debut picture book written by Mike the Knight creator, Alexander Bar and illustrated by Emma Proctor is a delight.
Bar uses a child-friendly, chatty narrative style with playful language and opportunities to join in and Emma Proctor brings out the humour of the story. Her exuberant, mixed media visuals are such that you want to stop and explore the plethora of whimsical details in every spread.

The Princess and the Christmas Rescue

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The Princess and the Christmas Rescue
Caryl Hart and Sarah Warburton
Nosy Crow
‘On top of the world where the icy winds blow,
A beautiful palace grows out of the snow.’
This palace is home to Princess Eliza, a bright child with a passion for making things of a technological nature, though not for making friends, largely because she never sets foot outside the palace walls.
One day as she stands gazing out across the valley after abortive friend-making efforts within, she sees some smoke and decides to follow it and discover its source. Off she goes into the forest and is soon lost. What should loom up out of the snowy mist but a friendly reindeer who offers to take her to a place of safety.

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This turns out to be Santa’s Workshop where she discovers that the elves are in desperate need of some assistance and before long Eliza has set herself to work designing and creating some new machines.

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Can the problem-solving princess and her inventions speed things up sufficiently; and will she succeed in her friend-finding quest?
Just the thing for sharing at the start of the build-up to Christmas: this rhyming tale reads aloud beautifully. Children will doubtless enjoy the fact that Eliza’s kindness and problem-solving skills are both rewarding and rewarded.

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Sarah Warburton’s North Pole scenes are full of humour, wonderful details and seasonal warmth; and those elves with their crazy headgear are terrific fun.